CHRIS CRUCIAL: Trump's revenge plan 😡

PLUS: Fani Willis screwed up.

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1. The vengeance presidency

Donald Trump has grown fond of saying “my revenge will be success.” He said it over the weekend, in fact, in an “interview” with “Fox & Friends.”

Trump has adopted that line because, well, his prior position on revenge — “I am your warrior, I am your justice, For those who have been wronged and betrayed … I am your retribution” — didn’t, er, go over so well.

But, even as Trump tries to downplay his desire for vengeance against those he believes have wronged him, there’s increasing evidence that he would do everything he could as president to target just those sorts of people.

Consider:

• In an interview with Newsmax on Tuesday, Trump seemed entirely open to punishing his enemies — using the powers of the White House. “You know, it’s a terrible, terrible path that they’re leading us to, and it’s very possible that it’s going to have to happen to them,” he said. “It’s a terrible precedent for our country. Does that mean the next president does it to them? That’s really the question.”

• Axios reported Wednesday morning that former Trump White House political adviser Steve Bannon openly admitted that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who successfully prosecuted Trump for falsifying business records, would be investigated — and jailed. “Of course [Bragg] should be — and will be — jailed,” promised Bannon. (Bannon also floated investigating “[Democrats'] media allies.”)

• In the immediate aftermath of Trump’s guilty verdict last month, CNN wrote this: “The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh, who commands a following of millions of subscribers on YouTube and social media, said after the verdict that Trump ‘should make and publish a list of ten high ranking Democrat criminals who he will have arrested when he takes office.’ The Federalist chief executive Sean Davis said he wants ‘to see lists of which Democrat officials are going to be put in prison.’ And Fox News’ Jesse Watters declared, ‘We’re going to vanquish the evil forces that are destroying this republic.’”

So…….

Look. It’s important to understand these two facts about who Donald Trump is:

1. He sees the world — all of it — as a zero-sum game. If you are up, he must be down. And he doesn’t ever want to be down. So the best way for him to be up is to make sure the people he hates are down.

2. He thinks of the presidency as simply an extension of his life as the CEO of a company. His goal in both is to reward his friends and punish his enemies. And he has zero compunction about using the tools of the federal government to do so. In fact, as we saw with the Justice Department in his first term, he gets very angry when government officials don’t use their power to settle his personal scores.

And, honestly, you can already see him testing out the rhetorical argument he will use as he turns the wheels of government to crush his opponents. The logic will go like this: